Hades in a Handbasket
by Marsh of Sleep
Summary: Maka, reigning Queen of Hades, has been ordered by Zeus to hit on the latest hottie in the mortal realm. A Hades and Persephone story. Also a story about fruit, peeping toms, immortox injections, and missing underwear. Rated for mature content and bad Greek myth puns. AU Soul/Maka, implied Zeus/everybody.
1. that WAS a pun, actually

Blanket statement here: If I have a story that says in-progress, it is true.

I do not own Soul Eater.

* * *

The following as an account of events which occurred after a request for a work schedule adjustment.

It is also love story. Probably.

* * *

"This place needs some _life_ in it, don't you think?"

Maka, goddess of Hades, can only give her sister a wry look over her never-ending pile of paperwork. "Was that supposed to be a pun, O Mighty One?"

Kim fluffs her vibrant pink hair as she disdainfully glances about the sprawling, nearly endless space that serves as Maka's central office. "No, but if there happened to be one, poetry would be written about my cunning wit to be retold for all eternity." She adjusts the drape of her Olympian robes, cut with the highest quality fabrics and dipped in gold. "But seriously, this place is the pits. Do you ever do anything for fun? As in _not work?_"

Sighing, Maka replies, "I handle all the dead people. All of them. Not _some_ of them, not just the ones you stomp into the ground because they tattled on you to Hera because you had an affair, but _all of them._ It's kind of a full-time job."

"Gods, I'd rather bathe in Lethe than try to have a funny conversation with you. You need to lighten the hell up, killjoy."

"The souls of the dead provide adequate lighting, thank you."

Zeus digs her fingers into her hair and tugs. "Shut uuuuuup! Look. I demand you find a spouse-"

Maka blurts, appalled, "You can't do that!"

Kim points at herself. "Queen of the gods, remember? And queen of the gods says you need someone to remind you you're not as dead as all the other dudes here. Like your little friend," she sneers, waving in Maka's direction.

"What? What fri-oh." Maka eyes the latest soul that had attached to her, unwilling to part with anything alive.

"The hell is that," Zeus accuses.

"The first step is denial," Maka replies. "They figure it out eventually. And I **don't need to marry anyone, okay?** I'm perfectly fine on my own." She digs through her cloak, finding a pomegranate and offering it to the small spirit attached to her. It accepts the fruit and becomes distracted enough trying to open it that it disengages from her own soul and meanders away.

Kim waggles little bolts of static at the spirit and it hastens out of the office, squeaking in terror. "You're just afraid of the dating scene, don't lie to me."

Maka groans. "As soon as they find out where I live, the spark kinda goes out, alright?"

"Like they even get that far. You couldn't flirt with Dionysus, you're so bad."

"Urgh," Maka replies, slumping in her chair. "Why must you torment me so?"

Kim summons a palm-sized black device that glitters with diamonds and gold. She flicks her fingers across its surface, searching for something in its glossy depths. "Look, lemme find you the latest hottie. I got Helios sending me texts on all the new mortals."

Helios, an old titan of the sun, always tended to rub Maka the wrong way, even if she did mean well. "B-Blair?"

"Yep," Kim chirps. "I get updates like every twenty-four hours; she's the best. **Here we go: **'Soul Evans'. Oh man, that name! Clearly Fate at work for a name like that. He's perfect for a consort of the underworld."

Maka rolls her eyes. "Can we not bring the Fates into this- they freak me out a little."

"What, Kid and the sisters? Look, I already told you I cleared up that whole eighty-eight million, eight-hundred blah blah blah problem. I told Kid that mortals needed to live longer than two and a half years, no matter how pretty the amount of seconds looked. We're all cool now! He only gets to use the scissors these days. "

"Urgh," Maka repeats.

"Anyway, back to the hottie. Let's see… his only family is his br-" Kim abruptly cuts off her own sentence, clearing her throat. "His brother. Hm."

Shaking her head, Maka gets back to her paperwork. "What," she boredly asks.

"Nothing bad. I think I dated him for a few months? Haha…"

"And…"

"And he's kind of god of the harvest? You know, plants, growing food, l-living stuff…"

Maka levels her eyes at her sister. "He's going to hate me."

"Well you're gonna marry his little brother, not him!"

"**I'm** not marrying **anyone!"**

With a wave of her hand, the little black device disappears. "Just dress in something presentable and go check him out and I'll smooth things over with the bro," she says, adjusting her breasts in her robes.

"What, like right now?"

"Yes _now._ You may be immortal but the hottie isn't. So get moving! You need to get some fresh blood in this joint."


	2. ceiling-god is watching you masturbate

The author has essentially warped all of Greek myth to her own purposes and asks the reader to not take much of it seriously.

* * *

Maka hides among a small copse of trees, trying to keep her chariot and _all four of her horses_ from being horribly conspicuous. Zeus had advised her to come in style to 'look like _bank'_- whatever that means- but she feels more stupid than anything. All around her in every direction is pure living gold, field after field of perfectly ripened wheat fluttering in gorgeous waves. Four horses the color of black eternity and an underworld chariot aren't exactly natural.

Soul Evans is a young man- though his age is somewhat hard to determine- with flaxen hair and eyes like the reddish soil he stands on. He fluidly swings a scythe in precise, systematic strokes. Admittedly, he is very handsome. Then again, Maka may just be enraptured by the mortal realm; she can't remember the last time she'd been here, and had forgotten what fresh air tastes like.

Zeus likes to dress up whenever she visits the mortals. Today she's a lovely doe, her coat glossy and iridescent. Her hooves and little snout are delicate and refined. She nearly prances through the field to a humble mill house beyond, which sits next to a happy brook.

As Kim passes Soul through the field, the young man gives her a dubious look. The doe waggles one ear in his direction, expectant. Soul realizes the appearance of the creature for what it truly means, and haltingly inclines his head. Kim bounds away, smug, to visit the boy's brother.

Assuming he only speaks for his own ears, he muses to the sky, "If they start dating again, I'm totally moving out." He wipes his forearm across his brow, shouldering his scythe. His eyes boredly flit across the horizon, and that is when Maka's eyes lock with his.

"Crap," she says to the trees.

"What the hell?" he exclaims, taking his scythe into both hands, defensive. "Who trespasses on my brother's grounds? Show yourself!"

Grimacing, Maka slowly reveals herself, stepping out of the shadows of the trees. Her cloak catches on the tall wheat as she comes to stand before him. His grip on his weapon relaxes, surprised the trespasser is a short woman in a black cloak. "Yeah. Hi? Um. I'm Maka."

Soul blinks, the scythe shifting in his hands as he regards her. "M- _Hades?!"_

She waves a hand. "No, Hades is where I rule. It's a common misconception. My name is Maka."

"Um... " He bows a little, appearing unsure of how to conduct himself. "Are you… are you okay?"

"What?"

"I mean, you look a little pale…"

Maka looks to the side, stammering. "Y-yeah, I don't get out much." She takes a deep breath, damning her sister in the back of her thoughts. "**SAY,** I'm- Are you… single?"

He gives her a blank look as a breeze rushes through the acres of wheat around them. "What?"

She bites her bottom lip, floundering for some courage to continue. "I mean. I. Um. You're… pretty?"

Squinting, Soul turns turns his head slightly, as if trying to determine whether he is speaking to an apparition or just a lunatic. "Are you hitting on- wait, why was there a question mark after complimenting me," he mutters.

Maka places her hands on her face and scrubs violently, frustrated. "No, okay. Would you like to go to hell sometime?"

To her dismay, a mortal outright laughs at her (courageous, she might add) attempts at wooing. Soul says, catching his breath, "For a goddess you're pretty uncool, huh?" He realizes a moment too late that he'd just insulted a daughter of Rhea, and he cringes just half a second before Maka smacks him with her thick schedule book.

While he cradles his head and grits out apologies, prostrate, Maka murmurs, "Hades is a warm place by default so any lack of 'coolness' I may have is to be expected."

Soul gets back on his feet, using the scythe to help him upright, and gives her a wary and overall agitated look. "So, uh, since a goddess is- for all intents and purposes- hitting on me-"

"Was that a pun?"

"N-no? Just... why would a queen bother with me, of all people?"

Maka pulls her cowl a little further over her forehead, as if it may hide her from the sun's gaze. "You, ah, were recommended."

Puzzled, he asks, "By whom?"

Clearing her throat, Maka points a finger skyward at the blazing sun.

"The sun," he says thinly.

"Helios sees everything that transpires on the earth."

"So, when you say 'everything', do you mean, like, even my-"

"P-probably." At his appalled face, she hurriedly adds, "That's not why you were recommended, though! I think." Maka brings a hand to her mouth, uncertain. It _had_ been Zeus who'd set this up, after all. "...Probably."

He flushes, equal parts embarrassed and infuriated. "Don't suppose you can put in a word or something to make days shorter?" he mutters.

Maka scratches her nose, suffering from second-hand embarrassment. She tries especially hard not to let her gaze drift towards the lower half of his body. "This realm is designed for the long summer, so the sun has a busy schedule. The upperworld is not my jurisdiction, I'm afraid."

"Right. Of course not," he mutters, running his fingers across his scalp and checking them, as if looking for blood.

This whole situation has gone sour- not that it was very sweet to begin with. "Ah, but, um? Hades is another realm entirely! There is no sun in the underworld."

Soul tilts his head, curious despite his present mood. "So, it's always night?"

"Um, not exactly. Nyx does visit sometimes, though. Hades is neither day or night. Oh, but it's not entirely dark, either! The souls of the dead give off this really pretty fluorescence that's easy on… the, uh…"

Soul's head is still in that tilt, and he wears an expression she can't read. She's so out of practice with conversing with the living- she must be boring him with her rambling, but he won't mention it in fear of being smote.

"Anyway," she murmurs. "You could visit sometime. If, um, you wanted. You'd be welcome anytime, really."

Looking behind him towards the mill house for a moment, he turns to face her again and says, "Do I have to be dead?"

Maka's hands flail around, appalled. "Wh-what _no!" _She shakes her head so vigorously that her hood falls off to her shoulders. "No, you would be a guest! No deaths required. _Gosh_ I would be a crappy date if I made you DIE to have lunch, great Olympus!"

He's trying to stifle his laughter behind a hand. Maka puffs out her cheeks, crossing her arms over her chest. "What's so funny?"

"If I'd have to narrow it down, I'd say… you're a spaz."

"_What?!"_

He dodges her planner this time. "Is that really your face?"

Maka halts in the middle of a swing. "Are you insulting me?"

"Ah, no- Zeus manifests in other bodies so I'm just curious."

She scoffs. "I don't see the point in all that. I'm myself- I shouldn't have to be other things." She shifts uncomfortably as he scrutinizes her. "So, about lunch." She blushes as she makes her offer. "Are you interested?"

Soul's smile is crooked as he wipes sweat off the back of his neck. His eyes roam across her race and her hair, and she gets gooseflesh though she's standing in direct sunlight. "Well, I-"

"**NO," **shouts someone from across the field. All around them, wheat begins to wither and curl as Wes Evans tromps to them. Soul rolls his eyes. "The answer is 'no'. 'Farewell'. 'Go away'-"

"Wessss, you're killing the wheat again."

"My dearest brother will not marry a GODDESS OF DEATH. An Olympian at that! Nothing would be more fruitless and filled with heartache!"

"I'm not actually an Oly-"

"She didn't _propose,_ man!" Sighing, Soul plants the butt-end of his scythe into the ground so that it may stand upright on its own. "I think she just wants a hookup-"

Wes splutters. "HOOKUP?!"

"Hook-up?" Maka repeats, confused.

Soul glances at her, eyebrows knitted together. "You mean you weren't trying to seduce me?"

"Sed- DO I LOOK LIKE ZEUS?"

"Well, no, but-"

"I was wooing you!"

"W-" Flabbergasted, Soul exclaims, "How was that obvious at all?! You said I was 'recommended' by the friggen' _goddess of peeping toms_, and invited me to 'lunch'- **Wes, STOP wilting the crops, for the love of-"**

Meanwhile, as the three of them cycle in rounds of spluttering indignance, Kim bounds past the group, bee-lining for Maka's chariot while trumpeting, "ABORT, ABORT," before stealing her ride and leaving without her.

It's a special day when Maka has to pay her own ferryman to get to her realm. She swears off family, relationships, and big-mouthed mortal boys, no matter how pretty they are.


	3. realm lag

After washing the living realm off the soles of her feet, she settles into her desk to fill out death transaction receipts for the Fates when Soul Evans wanders in her office. Maka drops her quill, eyes wide.

"H-how did you-"

Finding the source of her voice, he perks up. His smile is a little awkward. "'Sup?"

Maka finds herself standing out of her chair, reeling with disbelief. _"How did you get past Cerberus?_ Only the dead and immortal are allowed past the gates of Hades without appointment!"

The young man scratches the back of his head, eyes drifting to the array of strange baubles and underworld oddities scattered across her desk. "That demon thing with three heads? He likes belly-rubbings, I dunno." He shrugs.

Her mouth hangs open.

"You're right, though- the glow is pretty cool, here." He risks a glance at her shell-shocked expression and grimaces. "I shouldn't have come, huh. I asked around and found out where the gate was, and you mentioned I'd be welcome, so I just..."

Maka steps around the side of her desk, stammering. "No! No, not at all, you are very much welcome! I, uh. I haven't- I wasn't prepared." She fumbles with her planner and tucks it into her cloak before banishing her desk and summoning her obsidian refrigerator from the nether. "What do mortals drink these days? Nectar? Ambrosia?"

He hasn't been here but a few moments and he's already laughing at her. She sucks her lips into a tight line, glaring at him over her shoulder.

Soul makes a shoddy attempt at sobering his amusement. "Mortals generally drink water, heh. But, uh, I don't need anything, thanks. What _is_ this thing?" he asks, stalking around her fridge and peering inside.

Maka quickly shuts it, remembering belatedly that Chronos would get on her case if Man learned a few millennia too early about certain technological advances. "S-storage! You know, for drinks and, uh, blood of the innocent and all that scary stuff mortals should never touch because they'd explode. Painfully. Forever."

Soul does not look convinced. "Forgive me for saying so, but uhh… I call bullshit."

She heaves a sigh just as the main klaxon sounds, shaking the room. Her guest startles, looking for the source of the alarm. "Okay! I don't call bullshit!" he insists, covering his ears.

Waving her hands assuringly, she yells, "It's just my doorbell! Sorry, can you hang on a minute? I need to greet the new residents!"

When the alarm ends, he gives his head a shake. "Residents? You mean, dead people?" he asks.

"Yes. I must make record of everyone who enters the underworld." Pulling the hood of her cloak securely over her head, Maka drifts to the stairs Soul had recently climbed.

"Hey, Hade- er. Maka?"

The bashfulness in his voice stops her descent, and she glances behind her, finding him eagerly waiting at the top of the stairs. "...Yes?"

"Can I come watch?"

She replies, incredulous, "You _want_ to?"

Soul shrugs slightly with one shoulder. "Yeah. I mean, it sounds cool."

Well, if a mortal was comfortable with giving the three-headed hound of the underworld 'belly-rubbings', she supposes he can't be terribly shaken with her realm in general. Still, she feels she should give him fair warning. "It might not be pleasant."

He does that little one-armed shrug again, feigning nonchalance, but his response is surprisingly frank. "If life was always pleasant, you'd never appreciate it," he reasons.

Maka hurriedly tugs her hood over her forehead more firmly, as her pale skin is probably glowing like a teenaged mortal. Honestly, what kind of goddess gets flustered over some dude who openly welcomes the gloomy with the cheerful? She turns around and continues down the stairs, waving him to follow because she doesn't trust her voice not to squeak.

Soul follows her to the shores of the underworld, openly admiring the glittering walkways and the ever-shifting glow emanating from the repenting souls in the Acheron. Other spirits wander the shores, sifting through the salt and pepper beaches. "What are they looking for?" He asks as they arrive at an ornate dock.

"Loose change," she replies. "Those who do not arrive with proper payment for the ferry must wander the shore for a hundred years. We tell them there's money on the beach to keep them occupied."

"..._Is_ there money?"

"Who knows?"

At his troubled silence, she amends with, "Hades is a busy place. Time is not how you are accustomed. A century gives the system enough time to expand and register the new additions, as well as find proper work and accommodations. _They_ hardly notice," she says, waving a hand towards the treasure hunters roaming the opposite shore. "It feels like only a few days have passed for them."

He seems a little mollified at this information, if not outright puzzled.

"By the way," she asks, "how _did_ you pay the ferryman? Usually he only accepts coins placed on the eyes or mouth during funeral rites."

Soul's eyebrows arch with surprise. "Charon? He said my tab was 'prepaid for all eternity'. I figured you did it."

"I, uh-" Gosh, why hadn't she thought of that? That would have been a great show of generosity to a potential consort! "No, it wasn't me. That's strange, all deposits must come through me, before…" Maka pulls out her planner from her bottomless cloak (Soul shies away at the sight of it, to her mild amusement) and pries it open. Scanning recent deposits, she finds Soul's name written in someone else's handwriting.

"'_Soul Evans, current balance: unending. Authorised and funded by Zeus'_." That sneaky little omnipotent trickster! She's probably the reason behind her mysteriously empty underwear drawer as well! Maka slams the book shut, feeling drafty and wondering how she can improve the security of her realm against the ruler of all gods. "You have a very generous patron," she flatlines.

He looks astonished and kind of nauseated at the mention of Zeus. "Yeah, apparently."

Narrowing her eyes, Maka gives him a distrustful glance. "My sister doesn't normally do things for free."

Soul holds his hands up, defensive. "Woah, hey now. If you're implying I slept with the boss to get to the _the land of the dead_, we need to straighten a few things out."

Tucking her planner under her arm, she lets the full weight of her cloak's darkness emphasize her displeasure. "Just how friendly are you two, anyway?"

"Man, I don't care if you _are_ a goddess- don't go jumping to conclusions. I've hardly spoken to her. Hell, I don't even know what she actually _looks_ like. I've only seen her as a deer, a horse, a very pink peacock, and a talking violin. Wes was drooling all over her so much I had to take care of the harvest by myself," he complains. "When you're feeding the entire planet, that's a lotta freakin' food!"

"B-back up, a talking _what?"_

Soul shudders. "Take it up with my brother if you really gotta know."

Maka decides selective ignorance may be in her best interests, considering she is immortal and to learn of questionable things about one's relatives is to know them for all eternity. She directs her hooded leer away from him for the moment. "Well. It's not like you're unwelcome here, so no harm done, I suppose."

Voice tense, he says, "For the record, I'm not into women who play around with guys' hearts for fun. Mortal or otherwise."

"I don't find that sort of thing fun," she evenly replies. "And I'm not interested in 'hook-ups', or whatever you call them. I am to find a partner for life." She doesn't dare look over at whatever expression he might be wearing after that statement, as he had been (and possibly still is) the first attempt at such a partner. She fears her face may melt, so she's relieved when she spies a boat floating down the river.

"Stein! Right on time," she calls, eager to change the subject. "Any bad currents?"

Charon's patchwork boat glides across the glowing water with his recent load of newly-dead. "None more so than usual," he boredly replies, taking a drag from a spectral cigarette. "No thanks to _this one_, once again." Stein thumbs behind his shoulder at a glowing body skimming across the river.

"What did he do this time," she asks, helping Stein tie-off at the dock.

"I like making waves, alright?!" exclaims the messenger god in question, water-skiing on Acheron with his golden sandals. Hermes does a flip off a ramp of purifying souls. "This trip is so boring after the billionth time."

Maka can feel a vessel threatening to burst behind her left eye. "_Do not use the dead as a ramp, you ass!"_

His hat keeping him airborne, Black Star floats by, uncaring. "What, they're not doing anything useful, anyway."

"Their sins are being purged," Stein says. "They have enough headaches."

Landing on the dock without an iota of remorse for his actions, he says, "Yeah, whatever." Addressing Soul, he grins. "Hey mortal! Still hanging around this dump?"

To Maka's dismay, Soul and Hermes appear to have already established a friendly secret handshake. "Haha, uh, yeah? It's only been like two hours, though."

The little wings on Black Star's helmet give a vague sort of flap in the god's confusion. He blinks a little, and shrugs. "My bad, I guess. I get the timezones so messed every time I'm in this damned place. Anyway, check out the latest batch! Most of them died from the same thing. That's like almost winning the lottery."

Maka shoos them out of her way and summons a small chair and card table at the end of the dock, taking a seat. Quickly organizing the scene, Maka briefly interviews each new soul, scanning them to see which area of Hades they'd be most comfortable and taking down their information in her endless planner. Everything goes smoothly until the last occupant on Charon's boat clings to her in desperation.

"I… I can't handle being dead!" the spirit wails, floating pathetically around Maka's shoulders. It takes several minutes of encouraging words before the spirit calms down enough to at least stop crying, though it still refuses to exorcise from her person. With a sigh, she bids Charon and Hermes farewell for another trip.

"Tell Urania I say 'hello'!" she calls after Black Star. The playboy god uncharacteristically blushes, mumbling something incoherent and hiding a smile.

Soul asks, perplexed, "Urania?"

"Yes. A muse. He has the biggest crush on her so I like to give him hell about it. ...That wasn't a pun." Maka turns to regard the wavering soul still attached to her. "What am I gonna do with you?" she asks.

The spirit hides behind her when Soul tries to get a better look at it. "Does this happen a lot?"

She nods, sympathetic. "Some mortals aren't very good with transition."

"Mm. Even I'm afraid of change, sometimes," he murmurs. Addressing the spirit, he says, "Hey- it's not so bad down here, is it? What's your name?"

The spirit shudders a little, but replies, "Chrysaor. But… 'Chrona' is fine too."

"'_Child of Medusa',_" Maka recites aloud as she writes in her planner. "And how did you die, Chrona?"

After a lot of wobbling and finger twiddling, the spirit admits, "I was so hungry! Aaah, what a dumb way to die, I can't stand it!"

Soul tries to be reassuring. "Well, the upside is... that'll never happen again. You can't die twice, right?"

"I guess so," Chrona says, slowly sinking to a normal height. The spirit's feet form and touch the ground of the underworld.

Maka jots a few notes down in her planner, shuts it and holds it out in front of Soul's face, waving it until he awkwardly holds it for her. Hands free, she pats her body, searching her cloak for a pomegranate. Finding one, she pulls it out and offers it to the spirit. "Fate can only cut the string once. Welcome to Hades, Chrona."

Chrona smiles a little, gently grasping the fruit.. "Thanks. Um, a-aren't you Hades?"

"My name is Maka. This place is Hades. It's a common misconception." She forms a small business card from the nether and burns a few notes on it with her fingertips before handing it to the spirit. "This is your department. There'll be work for you there, and comfortable lodging. Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions, okay?"

After Chrona wanders off beyond the docks, Maka pushes her hood off her head, officially off-duty. She takes her planner back from Soul, thanking him. She looks at the tome in her hands, troubled. Catching on her demeanor, Soul steps a little closer. "Is something wrong?"

Maka shakes her head. "No, it's probably nothing. Anyway, thanks again."

"No problem, again?"

She smiles. "I was actually talking about Chrona."

Blinking, Soul blushes a little. "Oh. Y-yeah, no big deal. What was that onion-y looking thing, anyway?" he asks, hands forming a round shape.

"It's not an onion," she giggles. "Don't you have pomegranates in the mortal realm?"

"Pomma-wha?"

Maka shakes her head. "It's a fruit. That one I grew here, in Hades. When a mortal eats food from the underworld, they become a permanent resident, so food is useful for those reluctant to accept their deaths. Though, even with offerings, when strays possess me it usually takes _years_ to get them off. Chrona was only, like, a month! That's a huge improvement."

Genially, he smiles back in response to her excitement, though the rest of his face reads confused. "Well, that's good... But what do you mean by 'a month'? That was only twenty minutes, at best, wasn't it?"

Maka runs her free hand through her bangs, straightening them after having them ruffled by the hood of her cloak. "Well, yes, but the universal standard of measurement is set to Mortal Time. That was about a month in the mortal realm, just now." She brings her fingers to her lips, muttering, "I could have sworn I told you this a while ago."

She's impressed that Soul's skin can pale almost within her own complexion's range. "Say _what. "_

This is when Kim appears on the dock with a loud thunderclap. Soul nearly jumps a meter into the air. Maka, annoyed, tries to flatten the static out of her recently-straightened hair. "What're you doing here, panty-stealer?" she accuses Zeus.

"Who in the hell?!" Soul blurts.

Zeus rolls her eyes. "Who do you think?" With a glare to the young man, Kim shapeshifts her head into a certain thin-snouted doe and sticks out a little pink tongue.

"_AUHGH, YOU!"_

"Nice to see you too," she deadpans, ears flattening against her head and irritatedly jutting her hip to one side. She sighs, boredly inspecting the state of her gold-flecked nails. "Soooo, there's kind of a mass crisis?"

Maka's gut sinks. "What's happened?"

"Grandma's got a cold."


	4. word allergy

Gaia had frozen over.

Nearly nine months had passed in the mortal realm by the time Maka and Soul arrive at the little mill house. They are both shocked to find the entire world icy and barren. The babbling brook behind Soul's home is nothing but an icy ditch.

Soul bursts into his house, swearing loudly. **"For harvest's sake, Wes!"**

Wes, bent over and stoking a fire in a wood stove, whips upright in surprise. "_Where have you been."_

"You put the entire world in _famine?_"

"You didn't leave me a note and you've been missing for NINE MONTHS! What did you expect- daisies and rainbows? I can't _help it, _it just _happens!_ You should have said something!"

Soul's hands fly to his head, fingers tangling in his wild hair. _"You_ should get a girlfriend! I was in Hades, I just wanted to say hi-"

Maka feels the need to say something, feeling partially (a lot) at fault. "He's not to blame! You have my apologies. Soul was not aware of the time zone difference."

By the looks of it, Wes Evans had not been aware of it, either. She supposes the God of the Harvest would have little interest in the inner-workings of the realm of the dead. "'Time zone'," he hollowly repeats.

"For him, it felt as if a few hours had passed. He didn't honestly know!"

Wes walks across the small house to her, his height looming over her. Like his younger brother, his eyes are red-tinted and, when swimming in fury, somewhat intimidating. He nearly growls at her, "And what were your intentions with my brother for those few hours?"

Wheezing, Soul interjects with, "Wes, _don't_. She's not like that."

"Like what?" Maka asks.

"Did you know? Soul is my only brother. My _pure, untainted, innocent, sixteen year old-"_

"Oh gods," Soul says, desperate, "If you say it, I will MURDER you!"

"**-virgin little brother!"**

Maka is startled when Soul makes an inhuman noise and dramatically staggers to the nearest corner, mashing his face into the walls.

Soul is _sixteen?!_ Maka's face burns scarlet at the impossibility of such a handsome boy. _How many times had she looked at his butt on the shores of the Acheron?_

"You stole him to that realm to doubtless force him to stay and become your servant!"

What is she, some kind of _kidnapper? _It's not like she burst out of the ground and grabbed his butt and hauled him to Hades like a piece of meat! Her cloak billows as her anger refuses to be contained, the corners of the mill house beginning to darken and glitter like the underworld. "I most certainly did not! You dare accuse the Keeper of Hades of such depravity? ...Also, I'll have you know my servants have the best insurance benefits in _any_ realm-"

Wryly, Wes replies, "I find it hard to believe an Olympian wouldn't jump at the chance to ensnare a virgin." Soul groans again in his corner. He appears to have some kind of word-allergy. "They go through them like a first-harvest feast."

"In the first place: _I live in Hades._ I'm not considered an Olympian. Secondly, stop generalizing! Not everyone is like my sister! I see you are trying to protect your brother, but that doesn't give you the right to _starve mankind with your uncontrollable moodswings-_"

"Our lives have nothing to do with you," he throws back, the temperature in the house plummeting. "Your business is _with the dead, not the living!"_

Shocked, this twists something she had not known was sore in her heart. Even her anger freezes over, her cloak falling into stillness.

Quietly, Soul moans from his corner, "**Stoooop." **His sigh comes out in a cloud of frozen mist. "She didn't drag me anywhere, Wes. I went to see her because _I_ wanted to." He turns around, red-brown eyes hollow and barren as the entire earth. "Gods, I just gave spiritual guidance to a soul that_ died of because of me."_


	5. squirrel!

_**Note: This is the second update to this story today. If you haven't caught up, please rewind to the previous chapter.**_

* * *

If Zeus had not been the ruler of all gods, Maka would strangle her to death with her own string of fate. Setting her up with a sixteen year old boy!? Maka is old enough to be his _ancestor_.

She's not sure what had transpired after Wes had demanded she leave his property. Kim had heard from Hermes who'd heard from Helios who'd seen the entire thing and knew every word, but Maka refuses to listen to whatever the gossips have to say, preferring to put the incident out of her mind. It's best if she stayed out of the affairs of mortals, anyhow.

Though Maka tries to forget him, her mind kept flitting back to Soul Evans: the boy who seemed to enjoy her gloomy home. And what a horrendous host she'd been to him! The look on his face when he'd realized his disappearance had caused the boatload of the dead he'd helped greet _arrive in the first place_- it pains her to remember it. If he ever liked the underworld before, he certainly didn't now.

Maka throws herself into her work, trying to efficiently mitigate the sudden influx of deaths and spreading them around equally in Hades to not bloat any one precinct. Every new starved-to-death resident weighs like a stone in her heart, grinding it into dust with guilt.

After eight grueling hours, the rush finally calms down. The mortal realm appears to have recovered from Wes's separation anxiety, and humans are starting to die from causes other than starvation. Maka teeters up the stairs to her office, eager for a nap.

She kicks off her house shoes and pulls open her blankets to slide, exhausted, into bed. Her eyes close for all of seven seconds before she screeches, startled by Charon lighting a cigarette.

"Aaugh, _Stein?_ What's going on? You never come in the office," she worriedly asks, stumbling out of bed and putting her house shoes back on. Maka banishes the mattress to make way for her desk. Hardly moving from her position, she plops in her chair and accidentally summons her cloak on backwards.

As she wrestles with the damned garment, Charon blows smoke out of his nose. It's not often he bothers to leave his boat and make the trek to her home. "There's a traffic jam outside the gate," he says.

Confused, Maka looks over her backwards cowl and opens her schedule book, searching for any notifications from the system. "Is the gate malfunctioning?"

"Doesn't look like it. I don't mind taking a day off after the last rush we had, but your guard dog is going to get domesticated at this rate." After Maka pinches the bridge her nose with the tips of her fingers, he adds, "Are you positive I can't take a fur sample or anything?"

She gives her ferryman an unamused look. "The last thing any realm needs is a second Cerberus."

"I promise it'd be better-behaved."

"**No cloning my demon dog." **She sighs. "Thanks for informing me, Stein. I'll tend to the matter myself," she says tiredly, dismissing him. After he leaves, she gives up on her cloak, banishing it and resummoning it properly.

"I'll admit, I wasn't expecting Demeter to be _that_ distressed," Kim says as she digs through Maka's refrigerator, casually stealing things and handing them off to three of her skittish handmaidens. The ruler of Hades screams.

"W-when did you-"

Kim makes a pleased noise of surprise, opening Maka's ambrosia carton and drinking directly from it. Her pink hair shimmers, growing long and reaching the floor like a royal, rose-colored train. She smacks her lips happily, putting the empty carton back in the fridge.

_"At least throw it away if it's empty,"_ Maka snaps. "I really need to figure out a better security system."

Shutting the door with a hip, Zeus summons a cushioned chair, beckoning a fourth handmaiden to sit. Kim then primly sits on the lap of the other woman, who blushes furiously and bites her lip to keep the pleased smile from her face. The handmaiden then begins wrestling with all of Kim's new hair, plaiting it.

At Maka's blood-curdling glare, Kim quips, "Someone needs a nap."

"Would that I could," she grouses. "Why are you here. I have things to attend."

"I wanted to make sure you weren't giving up on that hottie just 'cause of that whole frozen wasteland thing."

Appalled, Maka says, "I just registered the dead for the past _eight hours_ because of 'that frozen wasteland thing'!"

"Bah, mortals," Kim replies, waving dismissively with a hand. "They're a dime a dozen!"

"The 'hottie' you seem way too interested hooking up with me is a mortal, too, you know."

Her sister shrugs, trying to look appear innocent- which doesn't actually work because Maka gauges souls for a living- and says, "Only if you wanna be technical… Anyway, when's the last time you talked to anyone from the upperworlds who didn't run screaming from you in terror? You guys'd be great together! I checked out his thread with the Fates, even. They don't mess around, you know. He's… really solid!"

"I call bullshit," Maka blurts. She blushes a little, realizing from whom she'd stolen that phrase.

Kim groans and changes the subject. "Look, I got a thing for you. Shinies! Be distracted!" She throws something small and glittering, a leather strap trailing after it like the tail of a kite. Maka catches it, inspecting the gift.

Attached to the strap is a clear, polished jewel, its depths glowing like the souls of the underworld. When she cups her hands around it, faint light leaks between her fingers. "This is… actually really nice, Kim," she admits.

Zeus sniffs, noncommittal. "I had Hephaestus make it. See? Aren't I good sister?"

"You never do anything for free." Maka says, arching a brow. "And you're acting fishy. Even for you. What's the catch?"

All business, Kim says plainly, "The catch is you give it to Loverboy."

Maka sucks in a horrified breath and consequently chokes on her own spit.

"Before you ask 'why', it's because I said so. And, just so you know, I can personally guarantee you will never- ever- find a man _quite_ like that one." Kim scowls and her three handmaidens still holding the majority of Maka's groceries tremble in nervousness. "The statistical probabilities of it happening again are actually impossible. **Trust me."**

The unusual candidness of Zeus _does_ make her trust her, which only makes her actions that much more suspicious. Clearing her throat, Maka rasps, "W-why are you-"

"Didn't I just tell you why?! Now hurry up and go! Get a tan." Kim shoos her out of her own office, her golden nails flashing with lightning. Maka feels herself magically pushed towards the stairs. "Mortals are only good for like a century or something, so you better put the moves on him before he gets all old and deceased and stuff. I got bigger fish to fry than waste time playing Eros to your pathetic love-life."

Offended, Maka shouts angrily, "The one wasting people's time is you!" while trying not to trip down the stairs.

Sneering at any spirits who dared cross her path, she stomps to her personal stables in a foul mood, her cloak billowing around her as she harnesses two horses to her chariot. After this trip to the gate, she'll have to go grocery shopping again. Ambrosia is expensive, too! She snaps the reins and drives on the folds between realms, her horses bursting through the ground of the human world with a loud cacophony of magic and irritation.

Patience held together by the most ragged of threads, the air around her darkens and glitters. Maka angrily tugs her cowl over her head, making a mental note to send the bill for her food expenses to Zeus with a nasty note about equivalent exchange and keeping noses out of other people's business as she drives her horses to the gates of Hades.

Milling around the entrance, a crowd of three dozen or more newly dead spirits scatter and shy away from her furious countenance as she approaches. _"Who causes such commotion outside the gates to my dominion?"_ she demands, her horses skidding to a stop and whipping their heads in excitement. _"You disrupt the currents of Acheron!"_

Near the gates, three heads of Cerberus whine with its master's anger, its huge, oxen-sized body attempting to skulk away, out of sight.

"Get back here, you useless excuse of a watch dog!" she shouts, frazzled. Honestly! The demon isn't even _trying_ to eat anyone!

"Uh, hey Maka."

Standing awkwardly amidst the nerve-wracked spirits of the dead is Soul Evans, a hand-span taller than she'd last seen him. His physical change after less than a day is disorienting. He bears a large basket half-filled with small sheaves of bound grain.

Not expecting a mortal to be lingering at the gates of Hades, Maka's ire trips into confusion. "Whuh," she says gracelessly.

He makes soothing gestures to the spirits, reassuring them. Quietly to the nearest dead, he says, "You guys should prolly get going. Here." He hands a sheaf of wheat to one, of barley to another. The spirits nod in thanks, heading unerringly for Hades, surprisingly peaceful despite giving wary glances to her and her underworld horses. Once the crowd disperses, Soul leans what's left of his offerings at the base of the gate and stiffly approaches Maka's chariot.

She steps down, meeting him on the ground. Her horses turn their heads, stretching for him and curiously sniffing him. Though she has a feeling she already knows, she waves to the empty basket her horses are nosing through and asks, "What's this about?"

"Offerings from last harvest," he says, voice a few steps deeper than she remembers. In a moment of belated consideration, he bows somewhat mechanically. "Goddess," he formally greets. The sterility of it disheartens her after his boyish smiles she'd seen in her office a few hours ago . "Sorry if I caused any trouble."

"Charon told me there was a 'traffic jam'."

Soul cringes a little. "I found some time and was trying to make amends. I didn't expect them to hang around and _chat._ My bad."

She shakes her head. "No, don't be. They seemed encouraged as they passed into Hades. I owe you thanks."

His reddish eyes hold hers, and for a moment he looks a little relieved. It passes, and he glances away. Sensing that Maka is no longer angry, Cerberus shakes the earth as he pads to them, one boxy head bent low and roughly nudging for apology from her hand. She grudgingly scratches the mighty snout. Reaching out, Soul rubs under the hound's chin.

Eventually, he says, "It's because of me so many had passed through before them."

Maka closes her eyes, sighing heavily. "You did not measure their threads. You are not Fate." She pushes her hood back, moving into his line of vision so he can see her sincerity. "You aren't to blame for anyone's deaths," she insists. "If _I_ had never spoken with you..."

"Maka-"

She holds up a hand for silence, interrupting whatever he might have argued. "From personal experience, I know it's a long way from here on foot," she drawls, recalling Kim stealing her chariot. At the thought of Kim, she's aware of the necklace burning a hole in one of her many pockets. "I will escort you home."

Appearing torn, he says, "You really don't have to." He looks down. "...Why are you wearing slippers?"

Glancing for herself, her house shoes are exactly where she'd left them. Embarrassed, but more weary than anything, Maka places her face in her hands and groans. "I don't want to talk about it. Let's just go."

* * *

_**Marsh: thanks everyone for your kind and excited reviews. they are always treasured. even...the stranger ones...**_

_**sorry i haven't been around much. i am doing my best. **_


	6. killer pun pickups

_**to those who have asked 'where do i get these ideas', the answer is greek mythology. this absurdity basically writes itself.**_

* * *

She leaves her horses in the copse of trees that has become bushier since her last visit. Curiously, Soul does not bid her farewell and, in lieu of going home, wanders out into a budding field of wheat. With the quiet look over his shoulder he gives her, Maka feels herself pushed forward to him as strongly as if Kim had spelled her again.

"You look exactly how I remember," he says, running his hands across the tops of the crop as she trails behind him. "Well. Except for the slippers. Do you not age?"

Considering she had seen him only a few hours ago, she supposes she can't have aged much in his eyes at all. "I do, but it is imperceptible to mortals. The Fates are much older than I. Lachesis even has wrinkles."

He seems tormented at that information, and he's silent as they walk. They come to a small strip of hay-strewn land that separates one field of grain from another. Soul sits, sighing and stretching out his legs. "Just how old _are_ you?"

Maka bites her lip, slowly joining him on the ground. "In Mortal Time, I honestly don't know. I was twice-born when the Titans still ruled, long before the creation of Man."

"Twice?"

"It's a long story. The point is, I have been ruler of Hades for... awhile."

"Geeze," he says, sounding bitter. "I feel like a loser sitting next to you."

"Why? Is antiquity 'cool' these days?"

He snorts a little at that. "What I mean is- I feel like crap because I talked to a handful of dead guys, but you've personally spoken with every mortal who's ever died since the beginning of time."

She shrugs a little, unsure what to say. "Death is not necessarily a mournful thing. Being dead is more tedious than much else, really- you have to put up with being in a boat with Black Star, then there's all the paperwork, the change of address forms, the never-ending line at the Department of Spectral Vehicles, all the tourist traffic for Tartarus..." Maka digs her fingers into hay and smells the dusty rawness she stirs up from it. "But I guess it's scary for most mortals at first. Just what kind of stories are you guys telling each other about the underworld, anyway? Everyone expects some evil creature under my hood!"

"I totally wasn't expecting a blonde, to be honest" he laughs.

Maka self-consciously brings a hand to her hair, stroking the ends of a handful of it. "Anyway. You did a really great thing today." From her perspective, he's technically done several great things in the past day. "I have not seen a man comfort the dead like you do. Despite being frightened of me and my realm, those souls willingly walked through the gates after speaking with you and accepting your gifts. They hardly wailed at all."

Soul laces his fingers together and studies them, flaxen eyebrows furrowed. "I guess I felt that I would want something familiar in my hands when I died, so."

At this, Maka stares at him, though he does not seem to notice. She imagines his death, sometime in the relatively short future. As ruler of the underworld, she would have to greet him on the shores of the Acheron, writing his name in her planner with so many others.

Her insides constrict a little. She is immortal. Soul is not. She doesn't like it.

After awhile, he says, "If it's okay to ask- I don't really wanna get smacked- uh. Are you dating someone else, now?"

Not expecting the question, her laughter surprises them both. "There are very few beings in existence who would entertain the thought of me and _dating_ at the same time."

"Let's be honest, '_Would you like to go to hell sometime_' is kinda the worst pickup ever."

Maka flops back into the hay, groaning. She petulantly kicks her slippers off her feet. "It's not like I've tried it on anyone else! Blurgh. Kim made that one up, anyway. _She's_ the one who demanded I find a partner."

"Wait…" he starts, unsure. "You only approached me because Zeus told you to?"

"Technically, yes." She cringes.

_"Wow,_" he says, giving one humorless, hurt laugh.

"Please don't misunderstand. I mean, yes, she's ruler of the gods, but in the grand scheme of things we are in equal standing. I didn't have to look for a partner. I came here for my own reasons."

Voice low, it's clear he's still offended when he asks, "What reasons, then?"

She hunches up in her cloak a little, the hay rustling under her shoulders. "...Even a goddess can desire companionship. "

He misinterprets her. "So, a fling." Soul's chin tilts down, his expression hidden behind his unruly hair.

"A fling _for all eternity,_" she says, irritated. "We are not all as fickle as you and your brother seem to think. My sister called me out on being too cowardly to even try finding someone, so I accepted her help. I gave it my best shot, catastrophe befell mankind, the end. You just had the misfortune at being first in line."

At his silence, she closes her eyes for a moment and sighs before reluctantly standing. There's a reason why mortals used the name of her home as a curse upon others. Who knew what would happen if she stays in the living realm any longer?

Maka pulls her hood over her head. "I should go. Just- sorry. About everything," she says, stepping back into the field and heading for her chariot.

Several paces away, she hears him call out, "Then, does that mean you're not dating anyone?"

She slows to a stop amidst the wheat. "...'My business is with the dead, not the living'," she murmurs.

"But _you're_ not dead, are you?" There's rustling behind her, footsteps hastening through hay and wheat, and she urges herself to leave this living realm but her feet remain planted. Then his hand is at her elbow, slowly turning her around. "Or aren't you? I never really know what to expect with you deities."

She avoids his eyes. "I'm not. I'm the complete opposite, really."

He opens his mouth. Shuts it. Tries again. "Listen, Maka- I haven't seen you in two years, so I wasn't sure if you still…" He trails off, lifting up a hand and pushing her hood off her head. She freezes, shocked when his fingers touch her hair. When he pulls out a stray piece of hay from her fringe, she nervously swallows. "I guess two years feels like almost nothing to you, doesn't it."

She looks at his hand wrapped neatly around her elbow, the warmth of his skin seeping through her cloak. "I saw you eight hours ago," she admits. "But that doesn't make those years nothing to you."

Soul rubs the stalk of hay between his fingers and it twirls around erratically, eyebrows drawn together. "What I'm trying to say is- I _do_ regret what happened, but I don't regret meeting you."

Her heart tumbles around in her chest. The souls of the dead that had piled in Hades because of her invitation to Soul are still fresh in her memory, but Soul had been thinking about them- and Maka- for two years and had come to _this_ conclusion? "Really?"

That little stalk of hay keeps spinning, spinning, spinning, as if he's trying to twirl his hesitance away. "I would've liked to have seen you again."

"Even though…"

He steps closer, nodding somewhat bashfully. "I knew I couldn't visit you because the consequences could've been horrendously fucked, but _if they hadn't been-_ like, if I could have seen you without my brother flipping out- would you have welcomed me?"

His thumb cautiously caresses her arm. There is so much empty, open space around them and yet he keeps drifting closer and she keeps allowing him to drift closer. She struggles for words, staring at his chest. "I didn't think you'd ever _want_ to come back, after what happened."

"Thaaaat doesn't really answer my question," he prods.

"Well, y-yes." Maka blushes brightly, caught between nervously smiling and pouting. "_Yes._ There's so much I still want to show you. There's so much I want you to show _me, _like how you've managed to tame my demon hound," she accuses, looking up and squinting at him in suspicion.

Soul's grin is broad and genuine. "He's a pushover, I dunno what the big deal is."

"He's _supposed_ to eat all the flesh off mortals before they enter the underworld."

Nose scrunching at the mental image, he says, "You should probably get a refund from his trainer, then."

She harrumphs at this- she's the one who'd trained Cerberus, after all- and before she knows what's happening, Soul pecks the corner of her mouth with his. He leans away quickly, face carefully blank as he waits for her reaction.

"_Oh,"_ is all she manages, the warmth left behind on her skin quickly cooling.

"Yeah." He nervously looks askance. "So, um, when you leave this time, will I ever see you again? Like, _before_ I die?"

An unearthly noise crawls out of her throat as she flounders for something intelligent to say. "Aaah, I, uh-"

The moment is shattered when a mini-alarm goes off in her cloak. Maka slides out of Soul's hand, reluctantly pulling away so she can search her multitude of bottomless pockets for her planner. She glowers at the tome before cracking it open, turning to her notifications page. A message from Charon begins to appear on the page, as if forming from smoke.

**'_Three-boat pile-up on the docks.'_**

Reading the message upside-down, Soul says, partially distracted with amazement, "You should probably get that, huh."

"I need to, yes," she agrees, apologetic.

He pulls his eyes away from her planner and nods, mouth tight. "Then go. Don't let me keep you."

"Soul…"

"Those newbies will really want to see a friendly face in the underworld," he urges.

His compassion for the dead is still something that makes her chest hurt with admiration, a constant that shines through no matter what he may be feeling. Squaring her shoulders, Maka snaps her planner shut, tucks it under an arm, and grabs both sides of his face to bring him to her lips. Though his entire body jerks, hands grasping her arms in surprise, his mouth melds to hers, compliant and serene.

Realistically, she knows her physical presence in his life only amounts to maybe three hours in its entirety and he'd been a sixteen year old boy less than a day ago, but his attraction feels real enough when she tilts her head and his lips part for her tongue. He's earthen, and she tastes his life for just a moment before she pulls away, releasing his face from her hands. His cheeks are tinted red, eyes dark and trained on hers.

"I will see you as soon as I can," she promises, catching her breath.

Soul sucks in his lips and runs his tongue between them, slowly letting go of her arms. His voice is thick and breathless. "M'kay," he says, a corner of his mouth twitching up in a crooked grin.

Before she leaves, she remembers Kim's gift in her pocket.


	7. 23 and backed up to hell

_**Note: they do it in this part, fair warning. NSFW, and silly to boot. Soul is totally the maiden sacrifice in this story and I am not sorry.**_

* * *

She snags five hours of sleep, documents seven loads of dead souls, breaks up a crowd in the Elysium Fields after Hermes takes it upon himself to distribute reward posters of her missing underwear collection, (attempts to drown Hermes in Styx), and daydreams about Soul's lips while stuck in an extended council meeting on Olympus.

Zeus catches her attention from across the triangular-shaped conference table, her left hand morphing into a likeness of Soul Evans while her face silently and intensely demands a progress report. Maka hides a smile behind her hand, pinned beneath Kim's pointed stare. Not wanting to disrupt the meeting (Gaia assures everyone she is perfectly fine, she feels refreshed after that little cold snap, even), she shrugs enigmatically at her sister.

Blair, having seen everything, leans over and whispers in Black Star's ear, who gleefully writes a note, folds it into a paper star, and flicks it at Zeus. Upon reading the contents of the note, Kim's face becomes deviously obscene. _'You made out!'_ she mouths from across the table.

Maka's cheeks burn. She studiously ignores the gossips, trying to pay attention to the council, but she can only think of Soul's mouth. She relives his lips opening to hers, his breath tangling in her lungs.

The moment the council is (_finally_) dismissed, it's purely an act of self-preservation when Maka folds between space, retreating to her office. As flustered and brain-fogged as she presently is, if she suffers through a Zeus-Interrogation, her face may explode.

However, her escape plans rarely succeed. One can only run so far from the ruler of the heavens. Loud footsteps echo in the stairwell, and Maka braces herself in her office chair, preparing to have her personal life completely invaded.

She's not expecting _him_ to appear in her office, pendant swinging across his sun-bleached tunic. He's even taller than yesterday, face matured and smile fitting his jawline in a way that makes her immortal heart threaten to stop.

The smile is not a pleased one.

"Even I have my limits," he pants, catching his breath from running all the way from shore.

The gravel of his voice stalls her for several seconds, her mind reeling from the myriad of changes in him. He'd turned into a grown man overnight. "Soul, I… _**Wow**__-_" Maka closes her eyes, trying to regain her composure. Opens them again. He's still _there_, a commanding presence with eyes like forgefire. "I wasn't expecting you?" she squeaks.

The smile evaporates, sweat running down his brow. Depositing a pair of age-worn slippers on her ebony desk, he says, "Well _I_ was. For five years I waited. You did not see me once."

Maka risks a glance to the slippers and experiences a strange mix of mortification and giddiness. She attempts to straighten her hair, her desk, her blood pressure. Suddenly blindsided by the memory of his lips on hers, she stammers, "The, uh, time zones-"

"Five years,_"_ he repeats, blunt. "If you want a consort that isn't senile, you're gonna have to tell me_. _Soonish."

_"Consort,"_ she silently mouths, astonished. She can't _think_, watching as he leans on the edge of her desk, his calloused hands gripping the surface. Determination rolls off his body in palpable waves, a storm simmering under his clothing.

"Maka." There aren't many who would dare look at the keeper of Hades in the eye, and she can count on one hand how many of them are mortal. A strange, somewhat pleasant tingle wraps around her spine when he locks gazes with her. As if a mortal has any right to question the divine, he says, "Tell me truthfully: are you dating someone else?"

Her back presses tightly into her chair as Soul stalks around the corner of her desk, fluidly approaching her like a beast of prey. She takes a deep breath to calm her nerves but she breathes in his scent, instead; he's brought the mortal realm with him, all sun and fertile soil and wheat and sweat. Her thighs absently press together. "I kissed you only yesterday," she says thinly.

He's closing in. "Do you still want a partner for eternity?"

Dizzily, she nods. Her mouth goes dry, eyes following the line of his spine as Soul bows- slowly, deliberately- in a sensual tribute to her station. He's inches away, still leaning forward when he looks up at her in her office-chair throne. The fire in his eyes scorches her. "Maka, I have only ten minutes," he says, voice tangling her bones. "Do you?"

Unable to look away from his face, she blindly feels around her desk for her planner and sloppily closes it. "I… I can give you fifteen." Feeling his breath on her lips as he moves closer, she murmurs, "If we take the chariot, I can save you travel ti- _mmph."_

The chair squeaks when the force of his kiss presses her into it. She's so caught up in his urgency she wraps her arms around him and tugs him closer. His mouth peppers down her neck and back up again, hands slipping through the part in her cloak and burning her body through her robes.

Into her skin, he hoarsely says, "I couldn't escape you." She gasps at the feel of his teeth plucking her jaw, scraping down her throat to worry her collarbones. A hand teases up her thigh, nails dragging on her sensitive skin. "You were everywhere, in the wheat, the trees, the shadows- Maka, _did you think of me at all?"_

Caught in the chair, _she can't touch him enough._ She surges upright, forcing him to backpedal into her desk. _"Yes,"_ she hisses against his mouth, the blood in her veins warmer than it's been in centuries. She claws through the belt around his waist, banishing his clothing and baring all his skin to her until he's only wearing the pendant she'd given him. "I couldn't stop, I thought of you through the entire... council... meeting-"

Transfixed, Maka runs her hand across a long, gory story marring his chest. His heart thumps under her fingers, ribs expanding as he breathes. "It's old," he murmurs, bringing her closer. "Almost met you a long time ago."

The scar looks like death- she's the queen of the dead, she'd seen her share of mortal wounds. "Does it hurt?"

"No," he murmurs, kissing the edges of her face. "Touch it. Touch _me._ Please." Cautiously, Maka nestles between his legs, her stomach pressing against his naked body. Soul groans, hands roaming to her backside and bunching the fabric of her clothing as he strokes the base of her spine. "_Please, _Maka,_"_ he says again, his tongue pulling an earlobe into his mouth.

Trembling from his attentions, Maka banishes her cloak and scatters the clutter off her desk, her slippers forgotten. She pushes Soul back across the desk, hitching up her robes and climbing over him. "We'd have more time in your realm," she suggests even as rests on his hips.

He's hard under her, pressing urgently between her legs. _"I've waited years for you, Goddess," _he breathes, hands mapping her thighs. "Any longer and I'll go mad_._"

She palms his stomach, his chest, his scar, and she can't help but return his crooked grin. He's thoroughly enjoying the caress of the goddess to whom he has offered himself. His own touches are bold and intense as she grinds over him, but there's a nervous impatience thrumming under his skin, and he twitches anxiously as her pussy glides against him.

Maka leans forward, mashing their bodies together and burying her nose into the crook of his neck. He smells of worlds far away, nearly exotic compared to the damp of the underworld. Soul moves her hair away from the side of her face, tangling his fingers in it and gently urging her to press her lips more firmly into his neck. She sucks his skin between her teeth and his hips cant beneath her, his cock slipping between her folds and prodding her entrance.

Sitting upright once more, she eases over him, taking the length of him into her body. Soul shifts, tilting against her and closing his eyes, lips silently mouthing her name. His hands burrow under her robes, finding the soaked place where they're joined. He spreads her flesh wider with his thumbs, stroking her folds as she begins to rock against him.

It's agony and bliss to have him fill her nearly to bursting, to be stretched wide by his flesh, to have his warm, breathing body pinned beneath her. The glow of Hades reflects in the sweat of his skin. She moans, stirring herself up with his cock and eagerly watching him roll into her hips as he sighs a mantra of, _"Ah, god, __**Maka,**__ urgh-"_

The desk shakes as he bucks under her, its inner contents rattling as he pulls her forward to clutch her tightly. She doesn't let up her pace and draws out his pleasure until he's taut and straining with it. Breath ragged in her ear, he says things that aren't words but are simple enough to understand- promises of devotion; pleas for mercy. Soul spills inside her, his seed overflowing. Maka moves slowly over him, savoring the heat pulsing feverishly in her body.

Only when he's a mess, his fingers frantically digging into her skin as he writhes, does she stop. Maka's chest heaves against his, not remembering the last time she'd felt this out of breath. Soul's hands skitter down her back. "You weren't pleased," he rasps.

She shakes her head, smiling. "I am very pleased."

"You know what I mean. Let me finish you, Maka. Teach me."

Despite her fatigue, his words make her quake. The promise in his eyes make her quake, too. She feels wild and girlish from that sly, vulpine smile. "We're out of time," she says, planting a kiss on his lips in regret. "We must get you back home before your brother gets anxious."

Soul groans, and it's not at all in pleasure. The back of his head thunks unhappily on the desk.

This is when Kim thunderclaps into her office. She spies them tangled and fifty percent naked on Maka's desk and announces, "_**OH**_. Oh HEY, alright, good deal! OKAY BYE!" before bolting right back out again.

Frozen in place with cosmic amounts of embarrassment, Maka curses on the six rivers of Hades.

"...Despite all that, I'm still hard. Huh."


	8. tldr: he fell in love with you

_**Note: a little bit more NSFW here. fair** **warning.**_

* * *

The impatience he'd held in her office has mellowed into a lazy, languid enjoyment. His hands please her under her cloak and robes, one teasing the underside of her breast while the other delves into her heat. She holds on to the edge of the chariot like it's her only source of sanity.

"I left him a note this time," he murmurs in her ear, his body pressing against her back. Indeed, the earth isn't frozen and barren, though the night air is slightly chilly. His callouses are rough on her tight nipples.

One of her own hands works frantically on her clit, and their fingers occasionally collide with her urgency. He delves inside, gently testing her walls. "S-Soul-" she hoarsely pleads, her legs threatening to buckle.

He smiles into her hair, crooking his fingers and causing her flesh to make obscene noises in the dark. "Yes?" he teases, and if she wasn't so close to orgasm she'd smack him upside his head because he sounds a little too amused, dangling a prize just out of her reach. It might even be a form of revenge for the past five years. But then he says, "Anything for the Goddess," like she is the only one, and she trembles around his fingers.

She croons it out, pressing into his hand. _"Harder."_ He happily complies, rumbling her name and firmly stroking her until she finds her release. His arm cinches around her when her knees wobble, holding her upright as she recovers. Then she makes _him _wobble, reaching behind for his arousal and holding it steady as she wetly presses around him.

* * *

"So what'd you do with my clothes, anyway?" he asks afterward, the cool night air finally getting to him.

"O-oh, sorry." Despite their recent activities, her face still manages to burn with embarrassment. Maka reaches for the nether, concentrating for the sensation of sun-bleached fabric and summons his tunic into existence. Likewise she tries to summon her professionalism back, but that doesn't work nearly as well. She offers his clothes with an outstretched arm. "Normally, I have lunch with someone before… um."

He smiles at her, sinister and sated, his eyes almost glowing from the light of his necklace. He'd caught her watching him while pulling his tunic back on. "If it bothers you that much, then we'll have lunch next time. Though, it should probably be here."

She absently straightens her cloak. "Ah, right. Fifteen minutes is kind of short, isn't it?"

"Hey," he says quietly, voice concerned. He sidles in front of her, helping her with a fold in the cloak. "I'll see you soon, right? Another five years is..."

Maybe the Fates really did do a number on this one, because she doesn't like the idea of going back home without him while he ages, holding on to short memories of her. How could this have happened? "It won't be tomorrow," she reluctantly says. "You know how it works. But I will come back as soon as I am able. I think if I set up a meeting with the council and your brother, we might b-"

His lips are warm against hers. "Four hours."

She leans away from him (but not before accepting another kiss). "Soul, I am ruler of Hades- I can't get anything close to ready in four hours!"

"I know, I know," he sighs, running a hand through his hair and ruffling it. Looking pained, he jokingly offers, "Four and a half?"

Maka shakes her head. "I'd need at least-" she mentally counts off everything she must prepare, "-twelve."

Soul scowls. _"Six."_

"Si- Do you think _you_ can convince your brother to let you become an immortal consort of the underworld in six hours?"

"Oh." He makes a haggard face at that, which abruptly morphs into surprise. "Consort? Really?" he asks, trying to tamp down the hopefulness in his voice- as if he hadn't been the one who'd blown into her office and bowed before her.

She makes a helpless, wordless noise. "What else can I do? I mean, I figured I would date someone for a few years first, but…" Maka stares into his eyes, imagining them hollow and lifeless like the rest of the underworld. She presses her palms into her own eyes in frustration. "Argh! _This is the problem with dating mortals_. If we went out for even a year, you'd already be dead twenty times over. Soul, you'll pass through the gates in less than two weeks with a coin under your tongue!"

A long silence passes, night creatures singing in the dark fields. Rough fingers gingerly pull on her wrists, taking her hands in his. He softly says, "I knew it was going fast for you, but I guess I didn't consider how much."

"I can't _sleep_ without everything changing," she agrees, despairing.

His thumbs rub her palms for a moment, deep in thought, before he releases her. "Take as long as you need." he says. "It's okay if… if you don't come back."

It feels as if the world has disappeared from under her feet. "What?"

"Putting you in a position to _marry_ someone because the window of opportunity is so small? **And** finding a way to do it without causing my brother to accidentally starve humanity? I can't ask anyone to do that, much less _a goddess_."

"Soul, that's not-"

"So, I can wait." He shrugs with one arm, and she's transported into yesterday, back in her office with a curious teenager watching eagerly after her. He smiles, but it's subdued and painful to see. "And even if you change your mind, I'm guaranteed to see you again at least one more time, right?" he says with a false blitheness.

Maka gapes at him, disbelieving. "You'd waste your life for this, waiting on me? _Why?!_ You may have years between my hours, but the little amount of time we've spent together is the same."

Soul looks to the side, considering. His fingers absently touch the pendant at his chest, the motion fluid and well-practiced. The worn leather strap had aged five years with him. "Did you know?" he starts, sounding so much like Wes that it makes her heart sink a little. "All the stories people tell of Hades are wrong. They call you heartless."

She sighs, murmuring, "It's a common misconception."

"_Nothing_ they said about you was right. They said nothing about pomegranates, or your hair, or about the glow from the souls in the Acheron. None of them know how how beautiful it is. None of them know how the Queen takes the time to meet every person who's ever died. The don't realize she'll greet even _them_ despite all the things they've called her."

After a self-conscious moment of consideration, Maka silently scoots closer to Soul, threading her arms between his. His heart is beating rapidly under his ribs when he closes the distance between them, his arms timidly encircling her.

Maka can't begin to know if she and Soul will work out forever. She doesn't know if they work _now,_ despite any physical attraction they clearly have for each other. But if she doesn't do something soon, she'll lose the possibility of finding out, and doesn't want to meet him at the docks.

"Thank you," she says. "But I am doing this for my own reasons- you are not asking me to do anything. If I can convince your brother to let you be my consort, and it doesn't work out between us…" He tenses against her. She takes a deep breath, charging forward. "I would still like for you to be part of Hades. I think you could do a lot of good things, there."

He had clearly not expected that kind of end to her speech. When she leans back in his arms to read his face, his expression is unguarded, pure shock.

"If that is something you are interested in, that is," she belatedly adds.

A smile slowly sneaks into his lips, and he tilts his head off to the side, ineffectively hiding his pleasure under his hair. "I, uh- I'd like that very much, I think."

"Yes?"

"Yeah."

Moving into his line of sight to hold his gaze, she says, determined, "Give me eight hours."

She can feel the trepidation at the thought of another two silent years fill him, but his eyes do not waver. "I'll be right here."

He'll be twenty-five by then.


	9. but really, where ARE your underpants

To keep the gods from warring one another, all interpersonal arguments and relations must be dealt with through formal council. Because the reasons for convening the Council are her own, Maka must host the gathering in her home. Maka sends word for the Olympians, with special invitation to Gaia as an important party concerned.

She puts extra effort into making the conference room bright and welcoming, as most of the Olympians are not fond of the gloom of Hades. A glance at her hourglass tells her she doesn't have much time left; catching up on her paperwork and registering new residents had eaten a lot of time, and Hermes had been especially slow in sending out the invitations, for some reason. Maka is searching through the nether to procure the last chair for the conference table just as Kim walks in, dressed and glittering in full regalia.

"Ah, sorry, I'm a little behind," Maka greets.

A stack of familiar formal summons flaps in Kim's hand as she gestures towards the conference table. "You don't need to bother with all this," she replies.

Immediately on guard, Maka slowly asks, "...Why?"

"Because I'm denying your request to convene."

After a beat of silent confusion, a multitude of emotions crash through the Queen of Hades, mouth hanging open as she stares at her sister. "I've been- I only have-" Her breath comes out in a frustrated _woosh_ of air. "I thought you, of all people, would have supported this!"

Zeus waves her free hand, a flippant, overused gesture intended to calm Maka down, but Kim looks entirely too ageless and polished compared to the man Maka had been rushing around for the past several hours trying to earn the right to see again that it makes her that much more infuriated. "Don't get your panties in a bunch. Listen-"

"I don't know where my panties are! **You** started this! You're the one who set this whole thing into motion, and yet you're-"

Annoyed, Kim snaps her manicured fingers and Maka's mouth clamps shut, her lips sealed with crackling static. _"Can you shut up when someone's trying to tell you a thing?"_

With a glare, Maka easily cancels out the curse. "I'm offended that you'd use a spell on me that was originally created for Black Star."

"Well if you would let the Queen of the friggen Gods speak for five seconds-"  
"Why are you denying my request?"

Leaning over in emphasis, Kim snarls, **"Be-**_**cause**_, the council literally _can't_ convene. One of the gods you summoned physically can not enter Hades."

Maka stammers, dumbfounded. "Wh-what? I mean, I know a lot of them don't really like it here, but I've never _forbidden_ the gods from entering."

"He's not forbidden," Kim says loftily. "He simply can't exist in this realm. The consequences would put the upperworld in jeopardy."

Staring at her sister cluelessly for several seconds (Kim rolls her eyes and sits in one of the conference chairs to wait it out), Maka eventually hazards, "...Wes?"

"Ding, ding, ding, you're a winner," Zeus deadpans, tossing the invitations on the table. "If the God of the Harvest changed time zones, all the crops and crap on earth would die. Not like, get frozen because he's had a temper tantrum, but like, _die_-die."

"...Oh."

_"And,"_ she says, opening a hand-mirror and applying lip gloss that appears to have been imbued with the stars, "if he was stuck in Council for a few hours- because let's be real: our meetings sometimes go on for decades- " she smacks her lips, snapping her mirror shut, "all of mankind would die out. That, or turn into raving cannibals. Mortals are freaky that way."

Slowly sinking to another empty chair, Maka perches on the edge of the seat, at a loss. If she can't host a Council in a place with a different time zone, she'll have to send out a request to have it held in the mortal realm, which would probably get thrown back in her face with a big immortal laugh because convening last-minute on Earth would doubtlessly cause some catastrophe- the gods have never been good about behaving in front of mortals.

She runs her hands through her hair and realizes, as her fingers get caught, that it's still done up in intricate, formal braids for the meeting. She deflates, shoulders slumping forward.

"What am I supposed to do? He's been waiting _two years_ and I have nothing to show for it."

Zeus makes a face. "You're a goddess, you don't have to prove anything to men," she says, incredulous. "What can a mortal expect in two years, anyway? That's like, not even a full workday."

"He doesn't _expect_ anything," Maka says, voice cheerless. "I promised I would see him. I was just hoping… Urgh."

Kim scoffs, looking slightly nauseated in the wake of _compassionate feelings_. "Alright, enough already. I guess I'll have to once more remind you what a good sister I am."

Curious, she watches Kim dig in the front of her robes, pulling a golden coin from her cleavage. (Somehow, Maka is not surprised.) Zeus blows on the metal, stirring it up with magic until it begins to spin, twirling so quickly that it hums in the air. She tosses it carelessly over her shoulder, as if making a wish at a fountain.

"I made arrangements," she sing-songs with a pleased smile as the golden coin snaps to the ceiling of the conference room. A portal opens and a miniature sun beams a concentrated shaft of light onto the marble floor below. The polished stone ripples in the light of the sun, becoming liquid. Water bubbles from it, boiling and gurgling upward, and through the water bursts little handfuls of stone and dirt and gravel, which is, in turn, overtaken by shoots of thick grass and clover.

A sapling begins to stretch in the sunlight, branches unfolding with bright leaves and orange colored blossoms. It grows meters in moments, the flowers aging and bearing pale fruits that darken to a vibrant red. And though the trunk of the tree is only a hand-span wide, a woman steps out from behind it as if she'd been hiding there the entire time, holding a ripe pomegranate.

Her robes are darker than Tartarus, though when she steps across the small patch of grass around the tree, the lush hue is adopted by her clothes, the bottom hem bleeding green. The white gloves that come up to her elbows are likewise stained from the fruit in her hands, making her appear somewhat like a murderer caught in the act.

"Yo~"

* * *

_**Note: just a tiny little update today, but yay for a new character appearance! if you've been following my tumblr, you should know who it is pretty easily, haha**_

_**thank you so much for all your kind and wonderful reviews, and such creative fanart! i cherish them always.**_


	10. it's made of flint, this blade is sick

**Note: this is another reminder that i basically destroy all established greek mythology for the sake of my own amusement. and shipping. today, we're pretending demeter is not a sibling to zeus and hades. because that would be really awkward. (even moreso with persephone/soul as his little brother). we cool? we cool.**

* * *

Because the original meeting is cancelled, Maka eagerly returns to the upperworld a few weeks earlier than planned. It's nearly afternoon when she arrives, still wearing her best robes under her cloak. The wheat fields whisper as they rustle in the warm breeze.

She'd expected Soul to be working at this time, but she's only greeted with the faint sounds of the water wheel turning in the brook.

While she's distracted, Kim plucks a daffodil bloom from one of the many woven into her own extravagant hair and tucks it into Maka's. "At least look like my sister," she grouses as she exits Maka's chariot. Cursing her inability to bring handmaidens to a council, Zeus picks up the excess fabric of her robes to keep them from dragging across the ground. She fumbles with them, trying not to catch her almost talon-like nail job on the material. "I always forget it's so _rural_ here. My sandals are getting dirty."

"Then turn into a deer or something," Maka grumbles, holding her schedule book tightly in her hands and consciously tilting her chin up as befitting a keeper of a realm. She steps off her chariot and nervously makes her way to the front door of Soul's home.

"I can't," Kim complains, following behind her. "Despite being held at this sh- …_locale_, this is technically going to be a Council, and 'the gods are not to wear disguises'."

"You're the one who made the rules."

Kim grinds her teeth. "I didn't think we'd ever have to convene where there's _dirt._ Why aren't you even _**wearing**_ shoes, are you some kind of animal? Urghhh," she shudders.

"I like being down to earth. Unlike some people."

"I'm Keeper of the Sky; what do you want from me? And my puns are way better than yours."  
"You wish."  
"You try too hard."

Coming to stand on the small stone stoop in front of the mill house's door, Maka blurts, "What if Wes refuses?"

The look Zeus gives her is aggravated, but it does soften a little bit after seeing Maka's anxiety. "Relax. That's why we brought Gran with us," she says, knocking on the door. "Everything will go according to plan."

Maka looks over her shoulder but only sees her chariot and horses in the distance. "Did she get lost, again? I know she thinks every trip is some kind of sightseeing tour."

"She's usually rooted 'cause of work, and all that. Anyway, she's already here."

"What?"  
"Whaddya mean 'what'? Can't you tell?"

Before Maka can ask anything else, the front door opens to a very displeased man. She knows two years have passed, and for a few moments she's unsure if Soul is the one staring stone-faced at the both of them or if it's his immortal brother. After looking into the reflection of eternity stretching behind his eyes, however, she knows.

Kim opens with, "I'm required to attend- I'm not any happier about it than you are."

Demeter briefly bows to Zeus, though he doesn't look happy about it. Quietly, he replies, "I didn't say anything, for the record. If you'd keep both your voices down, I'd be grateful." His red eyes reluctantly flit to Maka before glancing, somewhat puzzled, at her bare feet. "...He's resting," he says.

The house is as simple as Maka remembers, their woodstove dark and unlit. Sparse belongings are housed in bins and on shelves. Bright sunshine washes in through a thrown-open window, the sounds of the water wheel echoing through it. A washbasin is tucked alongside two cushioned pallets that serve as beds.

It smells like sickness. Zeus covers her nose and mouth with the back of her hand, and Maka is amazed her sister actually refrains from making a snide remark about 'freaky mortals'. Mortal in question sleeps curled on his side, shoulders marginally broader than eight hours ago. An empty bucket sits on the floor near his head.

Maka carefully steps forward, quietly standing at the foot of Soul's bed. His hairline is damp. She has an urge to get closer- to touch him and verify that he's alright- but she feels that, in view of his brother, it wouldn't be appropriate. No one is comfortable when a ruler of the dead visits the ill.

Immortals are not immune to sickness, but after a little ambrosia and rest, they can usually return to their normal selves. Maka is not so sure about humans, however. Her planner holds millions of names that have died from various illnesses throughout history. Questions on her tongue, she looks across the room to Wes for answers, worry seeping in her bones.

His face is unreadable for a moment, which, although confounding, is an improvement over the fury she'd last seen him with. Next to him, Kim waves her over, mouth pulled into a thin line; she doesn't want to get any closer to Soul than she has to.

"Please forgive my refusal of your summons," Wes lowly drawls as he invites the two women to sit at a small dining table. "Hades is a place I physically can not be."

Maka shakes her head, looking over her shoulder at Soul once more. "It was sent in my own ignorance… Is he going to be alright?" she can't help but ask. "Should we send for Iaso? Panacea, maybe?"

Loudly clearing her throat, Kim kicks Maka's chair. Maka whirls back around and guiltily straightens her posture.

Wes watches her like he's not sure what to think. He slowly says, "He'll be fine. He needs rest more than anything." To Kim, he adds, with a wan smile, "Besides, I am all too familiar with the price of blessed tinctures."

Kim delicately rubs her left temple in irritation, careful not to stab herself with her deadly manicure. She takes a deep breath and recites in monotone, "With all parties present, I, Zeus Boulaios, leader of the Moirai and supreme ruler, officially convene the Olympian Coun-"

"Wait." Wes says, unperturbed by Kim's warning growl and flashing eyes. "I was informed three of you would be attending."

Attempting to keep her voice low as to not wake his brother, Kim cracks her knuckles and grits out between clenched teeth, "With. All. Parties. Present. I, Zeus of _I'm gonna strangle you, _Queen of all gods, officially convene this Olympian Council and if you interrupt me again I will smite you _**so**_ hard-"

"You wouldn't smite anyone unless someone paid you first," Wes hisses back.

Zeus leans over the dining table, little wisps of her hair floating with static. "Even I can be a philanthropist if it means I get to rip you to pieces."

"I'd like to see you try."

"Has everyone forgotten the Titanomachy? _'Castrate and Conquer'._ It's a family motto."

Clearing her own throat, Maka gingerly puts a hand on Kim's shoulder and pushes her back into a less borderline-homicidal posture, now her turn to remind her sister where they are. "If we would tend to the original purpose of this Council, please." She sets her planner on the table, opening it to a page where she has written several notes to help her case. "I am formally expressing my desire to marry your brother."

Wes's mouth pulls into a mild frown. "I'm aware of why you're here." His eyes drift away from her and land on Soul.

She has no idea what to make of his statement. "So… you're okay with it?" she tries. Maka is startled to see a crooked, caustic ghost of a smile on his lips, both familiar and yet also alien- Wes tilts right while Soul tilts left.

"**No."**

Her teeth clench at the bluntness of his answer.

Kim speaks up for her. "Why the hell not? My sister isn't exactly a bad catch- If you ignore the whole gloomy thing she's actually kinda cute." She puts up a hand to halt Maka's offended protests. "She's one of the Big Three, has all the precious stones and metals in the earth at her dispense, and your brother, by virtue of being her consort, _would live forever._ How is that not the sweetest deal imaginable?"

Wes rests his elbows on the table, leaning on them and tiredly rubbing his face with a hand. He appears so burdened by Kim's presence that he could pass off as Atlas. "It's because you are involved that I want no part of this," he says to Zeus.

"She isn't marrying _you._ And, for the sake of Tartarus, just get over yourself-"

"You've already stolen his future and now you must take his present?"

"_Calm down._ You always were too emotional to deal with."

Looking between Kim's sour face and Wes's half-lidded, spiteful eyes, Maka slowly asks, "...What do you mean 'stolen his future'?"

Wes looks more than a little mystified at her ignorance. "You _don't_ know," he says, bewildered. He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest with a humorless laugh. "And here I figured you were in on it together."

"Excuse me?" Maka says, offended. "In on _what?"_

Kim groans. "Leave her out of this."

"How can I? Only a fool would think this wasn't your doing." Wes says, incredulous. Pressing a palm to the table, he slowly twists and brings a round glass bottle into existence, pulling it out of the wooden surface. Inside is an amber liquid that, when he uncorks the bottle, smells strongly of alcohol. "It's because of you that I've lost him to Hades in the first place," he says, bringing the bottle close to his mouth, "and now she's trying to steal him well before his time."

Zeus clucks her tongue and shakes her head at Demeter as if saying, '_Now you've done it.' _

"**My name is Maka."** Irritation with being spoken of as if she isn't even present taints the timbre of her voice, her words causing anything in the house that originated deep in the earth to faintly hum; various metal and glass objects tremble for their keeper while the woodstove begins to sing. "I will not sit here and be accused of... of _what?_ What are you even insinuating?" Maka's fingers itch to grab her planner and smack the God of the Harvest in the face.

Wes regards the vibrating bottle in his hand for a moment before raising an eyebrow at Maka. "Have you ever wondered why I am undying while my brother isn't?"

She doesn't like where this is heading. Taking a deep breath and quieting her anger's resonance in the room, she says, "To be honest, it is _because_ he is mortal that I haven't had time to wonder much of anything."

Tilting the bottle towards Kim, Wes asks in false-congeniality, "Why don't you tell Maka the story, O Just and Wise One?"

Kim scoffs, rolling her eyes. "Which part? The bit where you gut him like a fish or where you begged me to save his life?"

Maka's eyebrows reach for the ceiling. The temperature of the room begins to plummet.

"I seem to recall that sickle you gifted me was unnaturally sharp for something made of flint," Wes retorts, and it all comes together, then. It hits her like a train. Maka's eyes go wide, mind reeling.

"That's the scar," she blurts, staring at Soul's brother. "It was _you?"_

Wes brings the malt whiskey to his lips, the pain etched around the corners of his eyes an undeniable affirmation.

She whirls on Kim, pointing a shaking finger. "And **you,"** she wheezes, trying not to raise her voice. "You gave him the _Sickle of Cronus?!"_

The accused throws her hands in the air, frustrated. "It looked farm-y, okay? I figured he'd get some use out of it-"

"I'm sure you did," Wes flatlines, re-corking the bottle and setting it aside.

"Oh enough with the conspiracy theories," Kim chides. "Was I there in the field holding your arm when you split him open? No. That was our great _God of the Harvest."_

Wes looks about half a second away from saying something nasty, but he slumps instead, putting his head into his hands with a tired sigh. "It was an accident."

In a voice that might be considered gentle, if not grudgingly so, Kim says, "Oi. You're gonna freeze him if you don't get a grip."

He takes a deep breath, face still firmly planted in his hands. The air begins to warm to a more comfortable temperature.

Maka makes a silent, expectant gesture to her sister, who purses her lips and reaches across the table and helps herself to the bottle of whiskey. "Long story short, I traded one of Panacea's poultices in exchange for Soul's immortality."

As Kim uncorks the bottle, Maka splutters, aghast. "You _**what?!"**_

"It's not like he was using it," she insists, taking a swig.

* * *

_special thanks to a moose, a sheep, and a camel for looking at my gdoc for me before i posted. also thanks again to you lovely reviewers and fanartists!_


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